Plot Eviction

Is it a council plot or an informal arrangement?

It's a tricky one, because ultimately it's your responsibility to maintain the plot within the standards set by your tenancy, and to take steps to arrange for that to happen if you can't do so e.g. someone else to help you out.  I assume you didn't tell them about the difficulties you were having in getting down to the plot before you got the letter?

However, I would expect there to have been a warning system rather than a fait accompli without warning, particularly as you were given to understand that any probationary period had ended - or at least had not been told it had been extended.  Presumably they will argue that as they hadn't told you it had ended, it was still in existence... 

The council has a duty to ensure that all people are treated fairly and this does not appear to have happened.  For example, what if you had a disability which had impacted on your ability to garden?  A failure to take that into account could amount to disability discrimination.  So their approach really does leave them open to difficulties.  The council can arrange for others to manage the sites on its behalf, but I don't think it can sign away its statutory responsibility for provision of allotments, which has to be done in a non-discriminatory way (cite the Public Sector Equality Duty to them).  Just because it doesn't necessarily apply to you, doesn't mean that it's not an argument you could make - the process is inherently unfair.  The council has to have some means of appeal otherwise anyone is at risk of arbitrary decisions being made.

Secondly, of course, you've been busy as a key worker and whilst that's not a reason they're obliged to take into account for not gardening your plot, it's certainly worth pursuing based on this basis.

Cleary the site secretary is not interested in changing their mind.  They may well have re-let your plot already.  In your position, I'd not waste any more time with them and move your lines of appeal to: 1) the council member in charge of parks and open spaces, allotments, or whatever it's called for your local council; 2) your local councillor; and 3) your MP.  It's not good press to kick a key worker off their allotment when they've not had time to take leave, let alone spend the amount of time at the plot that others who might not have been key workers have managed to do during lockdown and/or furlough.

Good luck!

It might also be an idea, if you are successful in retaining your plot, to arrange to cover uncultivated areas until you are able to begin working on them again.  This will prevent other plotholders from being inundated with weed seeds, and will also make life much easier for you when you uncover each section as you are able to deal with it, as the covering will kill off many of the weeds for you.

It's been a difficult year for those of us on committees who have to keep allotment sites up to standard. I know cos I'm the one that has to write the letters after the inspection teams have been round.

We have four different sites and two of them have active site reps, one has a good community that lets us know where there are problems and the other used to have good site representation but that's gone down hill with the change of committee over the years. So usually the committee knows if there are problems such as key working, family illness, financial difficulties. The only difficult situation is where the tenant dies, we aren't told and the family doesn't want to hand back the allotment till they have taken off "stuff" which can take months. With resulting dire consequences.

Our tenancy specifies so much cultivated after three months rising to so much at the end of the year and thereafter. Usually a letter pointing this out and giving a maximum of a month's notice brings the tenant up to the trading hut where the committee is easily contacted or contact through our email system or Facebook. Usually this allows us to negotiate an agreement about getting the allotment back into order or finding a face saving reason to let the tenant leave without a dispute.

We do have a system for dealing with appeals against evictions - no-one gets turned off if they wish to come and plead their case before the committee. If they don't like our decision they can then appeal to the town council (that usually scares them into improvement or handing in the keys).